Serbis

By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.6
Director: Brillante Mendoza
Starring: Coco Martin | Dan Alvaro | Gina Pareño | Jacklyn Jose | Julio Diaz | Kristoffer King

Country: france, philippines

Year: 2009

Running time: 90

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1225296/

Bruce says: “Brillante Mendoza is rapidly becoming one of my favorite living directors. Mendoza has cleverly branded his version of social realism. His Filipino kitchen sink style and hand-held camerawork are not for everyone but they are essential  components in his filmmaking, lending his films a dizzying air that complements his subject matter. Like his recent SLINGSHOT
and FOSTER CHILD, SERBIS is set in a slum that resembles a rabbit warren.

“SERBIS tells the story of a dysfunctional family that owns a dilapidated cinema which is one half step above being a gay whorehouse. Illustrating the matriarchal structure of his culture, it is the women in the film who call all the shots. They are the planners and task masters. The men are reduced to being worker bees and sperm donors. Nanay Flor (Gina Pareño) is the matriarch of the family. She has temporarily abdicated her management role to her daughter Nayda (Jacklyn Jose) since she is focused on a bigamy suit. Her philandering husband has left her and is raising a second family with another woman. She wants revenge although her children are not so eager to increase the family tensions. Nayda spends most of her day patrolling the cinemas to make sure everyone is doing their job. Nayda’s husband Lando cooks for the family and he manages snack bar at the cinema. Her son Alan (Coco Martin) is in charge of the films. Son Ronald (Kristoffer King) is the projectionist. Merly (Mercedes Cabral), her young teen daughter, takes tickets. The boundaries of the cinema and the family living quarters are often blurred. Young transvestites and hustlers and their customers flow into the same corridors that the family uses to go from room to room. Complicated tracking shots chart the movement of the characters through the building, both from the front and from behind.

“Everyone is sexually charged. Alan and his girl have sex constantly and are worrying how to break the news to the family that she is pregnant. Merly dons provocative outfits. She promptly gets slapped by her mother and is told to change. The customers have sex in the seats, in the aisles and in the back of the theater. Even the projectionist gets a blowjob while the broken reel spins round and round. Set design for the film came easily. SERBIS was shot on location in a real cinema appropriately named Family. 4.5 cats

“SERBIS screened at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.”

Jason says: “SERBIS takes its name from the code word which the gay hustlers who populate the film’s setting use to signify their availability.  After watching it, I wonder why director Brillante Mendoza decided why he wanted this to be the word representing his film, especially when ‘Family’ was sitting right there, admittedly obvious but also fitting and ironic.  The ‘servicing’ seems to mostly be going on at the periphery, and it makes me wonder whether I’m missing some greater metaphor.

“The setting is the Family Theater, aptly named in that it is owned, operated, and inhabited by three generations of the Pineda family; it’s certainly not a place for the whole family, as it shows adult films and serves as a rendezvous and place of business for the local hustlers, prostitutes, and johns.  Middle-aged Nayda (Jacklyn Jose) is handling most of the day-to-day operations, especially since her mother Flor (Gina Pareño) has recently been preoccupied by the legal proceedings against her husband (she’s very worried that one son’s testimony will allow him to go free).  Nayda’s husband Lando (Julio Diaz) mans the lunch counter between ferrying their son to and from school.  Her cousin Alan (Coco Martin) paints murals and does odd jobs; in-law Ronald (Kristoffer King) handles projection.  Every day is busy, but today is noteworthy; it’s the day of the trial and also the day Alan’s girlfriend Merly (Mercedes Cabral) shows up to put the extra pressure on him to share some information with Flor.

?Both the family Pineda and Family Theater are sprawling and somewhat run-down.  Although Nayda is a rock at the center of the family, most of the rest show some sign of physical or mental infirmity:  Alan has a revolting boil on his bottom, Ronald limps, Lando forgets things.  And while the Family looks like it might have been an impressive place once – it has a balcony, and a large sign in good repair – there are tiles missing from the floor, though, and early on we see the men’s room fill with filthy water as the floor drain gets plugged up.  The Pinedas have more or less let the sex trade take over the theater, which is not only their place of business but their home, and though there’s not much hand-wringing about it, there’s obviously some concern about how the environment is affecting the two youngest members of the family.

“Ah, there it is; there’s how the title reflects the heart of the film.  Mendoza and writer Armando Lao do a good job of hiding it within a few lines of Flor’s that don’t overtly connect to everything else, but demonstrate just how warped priorities have become.  I blame the sex for distracting me from this.  Though IMDB shows the film as being R-rated, I’m surprised at that; the sex is quite explicit, and a throwaway line late in the movie makes the fairly innocent-seeming bit that opens the into something very uncomfortably voyeuristic.  It’s both more than I expected and more than I personally favor, and I’m not really sure it’s the best way to tell the story, but it certainly does capture and focus the attention.

“The way Mendoza and cinematographer Odyssey Flores shoot the theater also gets some notice.  Like the sex, I sometimes get the feeling that the filmmakers are doing attention-grabbing things to give the audience something to talk up.  There are a pair of chases through the theater that are kind of showy, for instance.  They do help give audience members who haven’t thought much about what happens behind the scenes at the theater an impression of how the wide-open public spaces can give way to cramped, labyrinthine work spaces and corridors (including the inevitable need to go up and down stairs to move between two rooms on the same level).  There’s some fine handheld camera work, and while we see a great deal of decay and squalor, especially within the theater, the Angeles neighborhood outside does show sparks of vitality to hint that there is hope to be found.  The camera often seems reluctant to leave the theater; early on it seems to wait on the porch as Flor goes off to court, and it twists around to look straight up at the theater’s sign rather than pulling back across the street for a wide shot.

“As this sort of ensemble piece must, SERBIS has a very nice cast, starting with the two women at the center.  Jacklyn Jose and Gina Pareño play mother and daughter, but they are at the core two versions of the same character, at different points in their lives.  Both Nadya and Flor are strong, uncompromising women, maybe beautiful in their youth but practical now, facing the life they find themselves in with resignation, anger, and desperation, depending on the circumstances.  There’s not a man in the movie quite so captivating as them; Coco Martin’s Alan is interesting, but he’s defined by his weakness, rather than his strength.

“By the end, we may not have gotten a complete story, but the cast and crew have come together to give us an intriguing day in the life of the Family Theater.  Not always a pleasant one, but one with turning points and one which will probably linger in the mind.
4 cats”

Thom says: “I was not a fan of Mendoza’s 1st film Masahista (THE MASSEUR) (1 CAT) so when this screener arrived I certainly had my doubts, to say the least. This fantastic drama follows a family who runs a huge, decrepit movie palace that shows light pornographic movies. In the height of irony the gigantic venue is called ‘The Family.’ The dysfunctional family that runs the theatre also uses it as living quarters and various businesses that might relate to the cinema. In a convoluted, ever-fascinating plot the lives of the family intertwines with the strange customers that frequent the theatre. The family matriarch is amidst a terrible bigamy suit against her estranged husband. The most visible clients are gay hustlers who prey on the older men who come there. All manner of troubles beset the family including runaway goats, purse snatchers, unwanted pregnancies, and a hideous boil on one of the son’s buttocks, ad infinitum. While a terrific case can be made to compare this with GOODBYE, DRAGON INN by the sensational Tsai Ming-liang this film doesn’t contain the asceticism of that favorite of member Bruce Kingsley. But for me it’s to the films credit. If you take to this remarkable film many viewings might be in order due to the complex story line. A warning: there are a few scenes that are definitely pornographic. I now easily can see Bruce’s fascination to this coming Philippine director. 5 cats”

Diane says: “Turns out that living in a porn theater is not all glamour. There’s the laundry, the bathroom cleaning, the constant patrol…. You get a lot of exercise on the stairs.

“This day-in-the-life of an extended family, suffused with sordidness,  as a downright unpleasant experience for me (alleviated by the characters of the very dignified Flor and her charming grandson Jonas, and by the opportunity to see Filipino street life). Full of street noise, service boys, and very little beauty. I preferred reading the Chlotrudis reviews to watching it. 1 cat for how much I enjoyed the experience.

“Please note that others gave it 4 and 5 cats. It’s available as a screener.”